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Thursday, May 24, 2018

This was our view of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, from our balcony on the ship. What a beautiful sight to wake up to.

We even had time for a morning cocktail and some Yahtzee while we waited to disembark on our excursion for the day. When it was time to go, the waiter even put our drinks in to-go cups! Talk about service.

This day was our bus tour up the mountains and sky bucket ride back down. I have to say, I was pretty nervous about this one as I am NOT a heights person, nor do I typically enjoy hanging in a can up in the air attached to what might as well be a string in my anxiety filled recesses! LOL Mind you, if my sister had been on this one herself, the excursion itinerary would have been way different. I do not scuba dive and she does, I do not zipline and she does, and I'm not adventurous like she is.

As we stopped at the view point for pictures, I had already (mostly) forgotten about my anxiety and just enjoyed the view of the island and our ship in port. Can you believe just how big the cruise ship is? Compare it to the other boats in the harbor, the buildings all around, and you can see it in all its magnificence! A small traveling city for sure.

Our bus driver and knowledgeable tour guide, Hajji.

Magens Bay, from an overlook area, one of the stops our tour bus made for picture taking.

Me and Kathy above Magens Bay taken from St. Peter Mountain Top. This is the largest gift shop, bar, and observation point on the island. You can see the British Virgin Islands behind us. And yes, we shopped a little.

View of the Paradise Point Sky ride from a distance.

View of the cars coming up the mountain from our car on the way down.

View of the Charlotte Amalie shopping district from the ride above. You can see the back end of the ship (the stern, in boat talk) on the right side of the picture. St. Thomas is a small island, only about 50 square miles.

The ship from the sky bucket coming down the mountain. I wasn't even terrified! Which is really saying something.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

For my sister. Wishing I could pop over to our fave Mexican restaurant by her house for happy hour!

I had fun making this shaker card with the Margarita shaker window and frame set by My Favorite Things. For the glass I used some heavy acetate from cutting pad packaging and colored it with a copic marker. I save that stuff for all kinds of things like windows, shakers and this glass. The sentiment is from the Spirited Sentiments set, also by MFT, and the Cheers die is by Paper Smooches. Oh, and the "salt" on the rim is Stickles, frosted lace. I love adding extra touches like that.

Not the best photos. I forgot to get pictures with my "real" camera except for these I took with my phone before sealing it up in the envelope.

Monday, May 21, 2018

Hey crafty friends! If you don't know yet, I recently returned from my first ever cruise, first ever trip outside the country, and let me tell you, it was wonderful! My sister and I spent 10 days in the Caribbean visiting the Bahamas and U.S. Virgin Islands. What a magical trip.

Because I live nearly 3 hours from the airport, hubs and I had to leave the house by 5:15 to make my morning flight out of Spokane. Thankfully, I am able to sleep on the plane. I first flew to Phoenix, then the Dallas/Ft Worth, then on to Fort Lauderdale, where I arrived about 10:30 p.m. Monday night, April 30. I just wanted to go to bed. My sister arrived almost 3 hours later, yes, 1:30 a.m., after flying from San Diego to Atlanta before arriving at Fort Lauderdale. We did not make our own flight arrangements, this was done by the cruise line. Not sure we'll do it that way again, but in the end it worked out. Anyway, we stayed up all night playing Yahtzee in the airport, with nothing open, so no food or even coffee, until 6:30 a.m. Our cruise peeps finally arrived around 10:30 a.m. (yep - I had been there for 12 hours!!!) with our passes/transfers and everything we needed to get to the ship. Oh, but guess what....I wasn't on her list! Seriously?! Thank goodness I had all my documentation from the cruise site in hand which put me immediately onto her list. Whew.

We left the Fort Lauderdale airport by bus and arrived at Port Everglades the morning of May 1. The Caribbean Princess was waiting for us all huge and pretty. Embarking was cool - I got to skip all the lines as I was traveling with my sister who is an Elite member and gets fun extra perks! Two thumbs up for that. We left Port Everglades for Princess Cays around 4:30 that afternoon. It was awesome.

This is the first picture I took on board as we waited for everything and everyone to get underway. We had lots of time as we boarded early due to Kathy's Elite status. Much of our time spent aboard ship was spent playing Yahtzee and drinking mimosas. Because that's what you do when you're at sea. And we're fancy.

The pilot boat guiding us out of port.

Sleeping on the ship was amazing. I loved the gentle rocking of the ocean and the bed was SO COMFORTABLE!! Plus our stateroom had a balcony so we could take our dice and drinks out there in the evenings on nights when it was cool. These pictures do not do it justice, believe me. And that blue....that is not a blue wall, that is the water. Also, we had a fridge, bar and two big TVs in there, plus a full bath and closet. Yeah. Nice.

We had signed up for two excursions our first day, in Princess Cays, Bahamas. The first was a glass-bottom boat tour, which was pretty cool, although the glass bottom was too cloudy to get any pictures of the cool fish and many kinds of coral we saw. It was fun though.

This is the Caribbean Princess from the beach at Princess Cays.

We found this table at a beach side bar where we decided to have a few drinks while we waited for the second excursion to begin. Turns out it was cancelled due to weather - it began pouring rain so we were glad we had this spot to chill and wait it out till it was time to go back to the ship.

These guys played great music. They did a lot of 70s stuff and they were really good.

Our next day was at sea while we headed for St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Come back later for Installment 2.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

I created this card/gift using lots of fun products by My Favorite Things (see list with links below). For the background panel, I used the Stitched Scallop Basic Edges 2, Party Patterns 6x6 paper pad, and My Mind's Eye Breeze 6x6 paper pad.

Starting with the Meant To Bee stamps and dies I cut several hives, layering them to give them dimension, then adhering with foam tape before adding the adorable bees. I put together the sentiment from the Sending Smooches stamp set.

The lip balm window and frame dies create the opening for the lip balm and the pouch holds it in place. On the back (inside the card) I used the tear strip die to create an opening to remove the lip balm without tearing the whole card apart.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Today's card is for the monthly Birthday Challenge at My Favorite Things, card challenges. Who doesn't love interactive cards? My nephew once said, they're like a card and present in one! I've used the Happy Hippos and cloud shaker set for this one. (See product links below.)

Cloud shaker window and frame dies coordinate with the cloud shaker pouches making shaker cards so super simple to create. No need for tons of foam tape with this method either. I really like the idea and My Favorite Things has many different shapes in the shaker dies and pouches.

For the background, I used the cloud stencil, also by My Favorite Things, giving the hippo soft clouds to float up into. Look at the adorable little bird who flew by to say hi!

Friday, April 20, 2018

Here is this week's challenge for My Favorite Things. I wanted to use the Toad-ally Awesome frogs for this card for my daughter, who is a frog lover.

I started with the Full of Heart stencil to ink my background in various shades of green. Then I decided, instead of coloring my frog, to cut him from pattern paper. I love him all polka dotty!

And, get this, the "puddle" he is sitting in...that is from the Safari Tree die! Not water at all, it's a TREE. I cut it from a scrap of watercolor I did for a previous card (Watercolor with distress inks). It makes the perfect little puddle for my froggy to sit and rest in. LOL

Monday, April 16, 2018

I don't know why I don't make these more often, because these box cards are very easy to make! If you haven't tried this technique, I hope you will do so soon. They only look complicated but, take my word for it, they are really not at all hard to do. And they are very fun to make and give as much as they are to receive. This one I made for my grandson whose birthday was Sunday.

As you know if you follow my blog, my Instagram, the Scrapendipity Studio Facebook Fan Page, or my personal Facebook page, My Favorite Things makes the most adorable stamp and die sets, and they really are some of my most favorite things for crafting. The elements on this card are no exception, as you will see by the long product list below!

This is the card box as it fits into the envelope for mailing, all folded up.

But, pull it out of the envelope and, voila! It practically unfolds itself, and out pop these adorable dinosaurs sending happy birthday wishes. The full message says, "Stomping by to say, have a roaring good birthday."

It is difficult to see all the elements hiding inside, but here are a couple of views that might give you an idea of just how much fun you can cram into one of these pop up box cards. This one holds 5 dinosaurs, 2 boulders, palm tree, mountain, foothills, lots of jungle grass and an erupting volcano. Doesn't that make you want to create one?? LOL Super fun and kids LOVE them. See product list below for all the goodies I used in the creation of this card. And have fun making one of your own!

There are many templates out there for this type of card, with slightly different measurements, but with a google search you are sure to find one that will work. There are also many, many you tube tutorials giving step by step instruction, so you should have no trouble even on your first try. Here is just one link that might help. I used her measurements for this card, but have used other templates in the past with the same wonderfully fun result. Pop Up Card Template

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Good afternoon! I hope you're enjoying Saturday where you are (and if it's not Saturday where you are, I hope you are still enjoying your day LOL). We are finally getting a touch of spring now that it's nearly mid-April. So crazy!! But at least we don't have snow like some poor, unfortunate parts of the country. Stay warm if that's you.

Today's card combines both the MFT Color Challenge #91 and Sketch Challenge #380. From the newest release, I used the sweet Rain or Shine set by Birdie Brown.